


Together

by Captain America (HisMightyShield)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Ending, Happy Ending, M/M, Meta, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:59:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisMightyShield/pseuds/Captain%20America
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Would you give up everything you had for me? Would you die for me? True love isn’t loyalty and friendship; it’s sacrifice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musamihi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musamihi/gifts).



> This is for Musamihi for her birthday. It’s intentionally a bit meta. The wishful thinking Post-Reichenbach feelings of a fan who knows none of this is true -- but what if it was? This is meant to be light-hearted & sweet. :3

He sat in the back of a crowded Piccadilly café, glaring at an impossibly hot coffee that he’d purchased with a new credit card. The café was busy because tourists were returning to London, the card was new because Sherlock Holmes was dead. He toppled off the top of St. Bart’s hospital; the suicide of a defamed detective, a fraud, a phony, another disappointment whose memory deserved to be swept away by the next sensational thing. Purple vegetables perhaps, or a Royal scandal (those were more scarce these days, since Irene had to go) or anything else that might erase the image of a man in a deerstalker from the hearts and minds of all those undeserving fans. He was here with his new credit card and a cap pulled down across his hair, a scarf and collar turned up against onlookers, because Sherlock Holmes was dead and so was Jim Moriarty.

At least the café was nice. He’d managed to secure an armchair in the back corner of the place, across from a man who was absolutely devouring the tabloids in his hand. A picture of Sherlock Holmes was on the cover of the paper, so he glanced away quickly, focusing on his cup and fidgeting with the brim of his cap.

The idea of sardonically thanking Mycroft Holmes was a concept he rolled around on his tongue. But he knew it would ruin everything The thought of pressing Mycroft’s nose deep into his mistakes and shortcomings was temptation like he’d never known. Spoiling surprises was always more satisfying than waiting for the _big reveal_ because those were almost always underwhelming, particularly with men like Mycroft who’d rather be sour than admit they hadn’t seen something coming. But he hadn’t seen it, not this something. There were variables at work that he’d never bothered to cram into his equations and so by the end, he was so built up on bad foundations he didn’t even realise how wrong he was. It was deeply satisfying for a younger brother tired of watching a bureaucratic baboon act as though he always knew best.

But there would be no unveiling; not a light to switch on nor curtain to raise because this was the end. He would never see Mycroft again and after today, if he could help it, he’d never see London again either. Death was, after all, usually supposed to be _final_ , even in instances where it wasn’t quite.

He pressed his lips against the side of his cup, letting the liquid touch his skin, though it was much too hot still to drink. It was strange for him, sitting among so many people and not bothering to pay attention to what they were doing. He liked watching, even the uninteresting, because they all had their own funny habits and ways about them. Today though, none of them came into focus. Not entirely, because he was too busy thinking about how different he thought the end would be, once upon a time. Suicide, he’d suspected, but he never for a moment thought he’d be so happy to commit it.

That meeting by the poolside was the real beginning. Not being able to tell if the real reflection was what danced in ripples on the surface of the water or the man in front of him and not so much knowing the right answer but feeling it. Before Jim’s phone had even rang, he’d known what was coming and what he had to do about it.

The woman saved from beheading, a falsified death and a lie to John Watson, all _Mycroft’s_ doing, all the laying of cornerstones in a plot to trap Jim Moriarty which Mycroft thought he kept concealed from his brother, but he was wrong because he didn’t know what Sherlock knew already.

A handful of meetings while Watson was off in New Zealand, in Dublin, at his sister’s. Nights spent in conversation about past cases and crimes, evenings that climaxed with Sherlock’s teeth on his naked thighs. They never needed to talk about what they were doing and they never seemed to be able to make it to Sherlock’s bedroom. Neither seemed at all necessary.

Once, while their skin cooled and their heartbeats slowed, Sherlock dipped into conversation about what he wished was different. Impossible wants were not usually fit to dwell on in Holmes’ opinion, but still he spoke calmly about how they would be better off if they’d reunited before the fame, before John and the semi-normal life that Holmes had chiseled out for himself. Jim asked him why he thought changing the past was impossible and sucked the salt off Sherlock’s stomach. Sherlock ignited an experiment to hide the odor of musk in the flat with an assault of smoke which greeted John when he came home. 

Mycroft was expectantly premature, coming forward with an idea as intricate and interesting as a children’s storybook. It made mocking him with fairytales easy, but Moriarty could barely believe that Mycroft thought him stupid to be handed all the beautiful, intimate details of Sherlock’s like without realising the strings attached. They’d gone through those secrets together, one night when Watson was out spending hours trying to restore a failing relationship with Girl Unknown. Sherlock pouring over his past picking out what others might think meaningful as Jim poured him out another glass of wine. Moriarty finished the evening satisfied with everything except the burn on his knees from the sofa upholstery.

After the crown jewels, the surveillance increased. John was suspicious, Mycroft watched his brother to watch Moriarty, there were the hitmen, hired like extras to populate the set. All to keep Mycroft driving forward. It was difficult, being that close without touching. Sipping tea and speaking in veiled, coded language about what they’d do when all of this was over. What they _owed_ each other, what they kept locked away for each other that no one else could see. A suicide, a death faked like Irene’s to save himself. It was all there in the words, in the stories.

But they missed each other. Jim almost slipped on the rooftop; it was kiss Sherlock or the barrel of a gun. It didn’t matter, Mycroft was still watching. John watched. The trap was sprung, the mouse was caught but someone else still had to die. Someone else still jumped. Sherlock Holmes was dead and so was Jim Moriarty.

There was no other way.

“Mycroft is going to come looking for you, you know,” he said, setting his too-hot cup down and sliding his arm across the chair’s arm to lean towards the man sitting in the armchair across who was still reading his paper.

“Only when he finally realises I’m not actively attempting to dismantle anything formerly belonging to Jim Moriarty.”

“It still belongs to me.”

The man folded the paper down, his blue eyes flashing an indignant look before he discarded the tabloid to the table and picked up his own impossibly black, sweeten espresso. “You’re not Jim Moriarty anymore.”

He wrinkled his nose in slight distaste, “I’m not anyone at the moment.”

“But that will change.” Sherlock sighed and leaned across the space between them, reaching out and placing his hand on the other man’s wrist. They could do that now, touch in public without thought of security cameras or Watson, who’d be tucked away at a funeral by now. They could be together now, in death. “Everything will change.”


End file.
